Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1887-03-29
THE SOIL OF WYOMING.
The Land Cut by Clutches aud Draws"
The VALLEYS and "Bottoms.-


The Valleys and BOTTOMS"
East Nebraska is a prairie; west Nebraska,
with its alkaii streams and sand hills, begins
to take somewhat of the character of this
country, with its strange unevenness. But
in Wyoming we reach the contamination OF
roughness, in what may have once been
prairie. To be sure, as we look from car
window, if in the spring, we may see the
strange munument-ike sandstones and the
crater-like knots about plain, so seems it,
of thousands of acres of yerdure. The land,
as a rule, is an alkali, soft limestone and sand
stone formation, the home of the nutritious
buffalo grass and sagebrush. Attempt TO
ride across one OF the plains and you find how
great the disparity. The land is cut in every
conceivable direction by abrupt gulches and
|. draws, :" with perpendicular sides from thirty
to one hundred feet deep, entirely concealed
by their character until you are right upon
them.
There is no water in these in this season.
They usually follow the natural watershed,
but head anywhere and everywhere upon the
plain, and, strangest of all, are as deep and
abrupt in their head as anywhere. You find
the valleys but a repetition of what you see
on larger scale from point of enlinence-
an apparent plain, and yonder a crater-like
biuff-but upon ascending its steep side you
are surprised to find its summit but the
boundary of another plateau, with gulches
deeper and wider l spoke of valleys a
moment ago; this country has none after the
| fashion of any eastern conceptions The
| streams are few and far between, usually
| from twelve to twenty miles and more, and
then the merest rivulets, at this season, after
sinking for miles in their course, and occa-
sionally breaking out spring-like and flowing
| short distance. These rivulets have narrow
| 4bottomsn often quite fertile, but scarcely
more than garden spots, with few serubby
cottonwoods and box-elders, entirely hidden
from view by the proximity of the neighbor-
| ing bluffs When wider and more like val
! leys, as is the bottom of the Platte, they are
| too sandy for cultivation. 1t is only by
| irrigation that even the Bottoms" are made
| productive 1t is along these bottoms that
the cattle have been accustomed to water and
that the ranches have been built. All this
beautiful country to look upon is utterly be-
| yond the reach of the plow or any agricul.
tural' crop, and is only saved from utter
desert by the spring rains, which grow the
| grass In short month or So
Just break the sod for any purpose and the
soil is the sport of the winds. The only pos
| sible hope would be in artesian wells, but
they could not be reached for thousands of
feet, and possibly not then, without great
expense, but with success probably scarce
enough to supply man and beasJ. There are
at present four ways by which men can &C
| quire land in the territory-homestead C1GO
acres, presumption dG9, timber culture goo
and desert retaining Q640. Now none of
these rights can be exercised except along the
streams, and then the very loosest constIuc-
ton must be made Of the conditions apple
able only to an unbroken prairie.-WyomiHg
| Letter in Detroit Free Press.